Right Angle began as a column in the now-defunct Sunday magazine in November 1991. The column allowed me the luxury of presenting an alternative to the prevailing left-liberal consensus in India. It has become the implicit signature tune for all my subsequent writings.

Friday, June 29, 2012

In the world of Punjabi humour, Nattha Singh and
Prem Singh may well be the same thing (or Singh), but it was a cruel joke that
Islamabad inflicted last Tuesday night when it clarified that Sarabjit Singh
had in fact been mistaken for Surjeet Singh. The sheer insensitivity of this
wilful mix-up apart, the incident, however, served to confirm once again—as if
further confirmation was needed—that when it comes to the bilateral
relationship with India, the last word doesn’t belong to either the President
or the Prime Minister.

This unfortunate reminder of the quirks of Pakistani
democracy is, however, timely. For the past year or so, an influential section
of India’s foreign policy establishment has made the strengthening of
Islamabad’s civilian government one of its main objectives. More than that,
they readily believed that the war-like situation along the Durand Line and
growing frostiness in US-Pakistan relations had actually helped tilt the
balance against the military. Last Tuesday’s midnight clarification should help
to inject a much-needed dose of realism into the official Indian perception of
Pakistan.

President Asif Ali Zardari may indeed be a jolly
fellow, a man who genuinely believes that cross-border trade is better than costly
trench warfare. Unfortunately, neither he nor the well-meaning cosmopolitan set
that frequently travel to India to preach aman
ki asha, count for too much in Pakistan’s power equations. True, a military
establishment that has been shown to be quite helpless against the repeated
violations of Pakistan’s sovereignty by US Special Forces, isn’t quite what it
was in the heydays of General Zia-ul Haq and General Pervez Musharraf. It has
shown itself to be quite ragged round the edges. Yet, in a country replete with
multiple power centres—that include the US-hating, India-loathing Islamist
radicals—the cantonments still have a nominal upper hand. And when the military
combines with the Islamists—as they did on the Sarabjit Singh issue—they become
all-powerful.

This is a fundamental truth that India has been
trying to impress upon world leaders from the day Osama bin Laden’s suicide
bombers destroyed the twin towers in New York and attacked the Pentagon in
September 2001. Last May, after the Abbottabad operation confirmed the presence
of Osama in the heart of the Pakistan military establishment, the US has come
round to the view that what India and, for that matter, President Hamid Karzai
of Afghanistan, have been saying for so long is right. It is now recognised in
Washington that far from being a part of the solution, Pakistan is central to
the problem.

When President Barack Obama assumed power in 2008,
there was nervousness in New Delhi that the cosy relationship established with
President George W. Bush would be unsettled. Indeed, some of Obama’s early
utterances triggered concern in India over the future direction of US policy in
the region. Today, all those misgivings have been dispelled—at least as far as
Pakistan is concerned. If President Bush, despite his long-term commitment to a
rising India, was still willing to give Pakistan an extraordinary amount of
leeway, President Obama has shown himself to be completely exasperated with
Pakistan. The sheer ferocity of the drone attacks is, for all practical purposes,
tantamount to a US declaration of war against Pakistan.

What has been witnessed in the past couple of years
is the unravelling of a US-Pakistan alliance that had been forged in the early
days of the Cold War. Having been made suckers for long, the US attitude
towards Pakistan is distinctly vengeful. Washington, it would seem, is out to
punish the Pakistan military for its duplicity and treachery. The quiet role
played by the US in nudging Saudi Arabia to extradite Zabiuddin Ansari, alias
Abu Jundal, to India earlier this week, would suggest that the pusillanimity
evident in the A.Q. Khan controversy may be a thing of the past. The US now
wants Pakistan’s dirty linen to be exposed to the world—even if that involves
admitting the earlier gullibility of the State Department and CIA.

Even if it is bad form to gloat over the misfortunes
of a neighbour, India can afford to take a we-told-you-so attitude. Yet, it is
inexplicable that a section of the Indian establishment seems to be deeply
embarrassed at Pakistan’s embarrassment. Having an independent foreign policy
is always a noble goal. Keeping an arm’s length from the US and other NATO
forces has earned India tremendous goodwill and secured some leverage in
Afghanistan. Is there now an attempt to tell a worried Islamabad that India
will keep its distance from the US-Pakistan divorce proceedings? That India
will do its bit to prevent Pakistan from being engulfed in a siege mentality?

Obviously there is. Why else did the Cabinet
Committee on Security feel obliged to repudiate yet another attempt to secure
the demilitarisation of Siachen? What explains the concern in South Block that
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s anxiety to visit Pakistan before 2014 with some
grand gesture of reconciliation may result in some foreign policy missteps?

Fortunately for India, the scope for unilateral
action on the part of a beleaguered Government is very limited. The UPA
Government no longer has the capacity to take bold initiatives. Pragmatism
should deem that India should confine itself to modest, baby steps in its
Pakistan policy. Bold initiatives necessitate a Pakistan at peace with itself.
That, tragically, is a distant hope.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

The past week has witnessed unconcealed jubilation in the ranks of the Congress over the apparent disarray in the NDA over the presidential election, so much so that there is talk of an UPA-3 in the air.

Some of the celebration is warranted. What once appeared to be a nail-biting contest between Pranab Mukherjee and APJ Abdul Kalam has turned out to be an entirely one-sided encounter after the former President announced that he was not in the race. The rebellion of Mamata Banerjee has been more than compensated by the support for Pranab from the Samajwadi Party, Shiv Sena, Telugu Desam Party, CPI(M), and, above all, the Janata Dal (United).

To what extent the incremental support owes to the candidate or the UPA Government is a matter of conjecture. However, what is certain is that the Congress’ political managers are drooling at the prospect of a full-scale civil war between the JD(U) and BJP over Narendra Modi, and the likelihood of Nitish Kumar opting out of the NDA altogether. The speculation has intensified following a curious defence of the UPA’s handling of the economy by the JD(U) spokesman Shivanand Tiwari. This has prompted speculation that Nitish’s attack on Modi is merely a cloak for the Bihar Chief Minister either emulating the SP and putting himself at the disposal of the highest bidder or, alternatively, emulating Naveen Patnaik and positioning himself as an independent regional force with no attachments to the national alliances.

The uncertainty is unhealthy. In earlier months, Nitish had made it quite clear to the BJP leadership that he would not hesitate to walk out of the NDA in the event the BJP chose the Gujarat Chief Minister as its face for the 2014 general election. He chose to reinforce the point after the BJP National Executive in Mumbai last month by making a big deal out of complete non-issues — Modi’s lament over caste politics in Bihar (which was actually an attack on Lalu Prasad Yadav) and the appearance of an anti-Nitish article in a magazine in which the Gujarat Government had advertised. In short, Nitish made a pre-emptive attack on the BJP.

However, it is one thing for Nitish to make clear his displeasure of the Modi project. But it does not follow that this should have prompted him to break with the NDA on the presidential election. After all, Purno Sangma wasn’t a candidate chosen unilaterally by the BJP: he was the preferred choice of the leaders of the AIADMK and Biju Janata Dal. Indeed, Naveen Patnaik spoke to Nitish last week canvassing support for Sangma. According to one source, Nitish did not offer very convincing reasons for turning down Patnaik. It is also understood that even Sharad Yadav wasn’t entirely persuaded by Nitish’s insistence on supporting the Congress nominee.

The speculation that the Bihar Chief Minister had secured firm assurances from the Centre on his long-term demand for a special Bihar package does not stand up to scrutiny. Regardless of the merits of Bihar’s claim, the UPA doesn’t have the necessary elbow room, either politically or financially, to accommodate Bihar without making a similar gesture towards West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Kerala. Manmohan Singh’s comments at the G-20 summit make it quite clear that cuts in Government spending to control a rising fiscal deficit are on the anvil. If Nitish has indeed been given commitments of special consideration by the Centre, these are valueless — and the Bihar Chief Minister knows it too.

Commitments from the Congress at this juncture are akin to receiving post-dated cheques on a tottering bank. No right thinking person would ever agree to such a scheme. And, unlike some leaders of the YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh, SP and BSP, the Centre cannot use the CBI as a pressure point against Nitish.

Under the circumstances, Nitish’s insistence on supporting Pranab Mukherjee (who, in case, was in no danger of losing) and breaking ranks with the anti-Congress bloc makes absolutely no political sense. In warning against making Modi the PM candidate, Nitish was appealing to other leaders in the BJP with whom he enjoys a good and convivial relationship. But their inclination to listen to him has been seriously undermined by his support to the Congress for the presidential election. Not only has he blemished his otherwise impeccable anti-Congress record, he has undermined the trust he enjoyed with other regional players such as Jayalalithaa, Naveen Patnaik, Mamata and Prakash Singh Badal.

There was a time when Nitish was seriously being viewed by both a section of the BJP and other regional parties as a possible candidate for Prime Minister in a post-2014 fractured Parliament. More than anything else, this owed to his position as a principled, reliable and clean politician. With this one inexplicable act, he has put himself on par with Mulayam Singh Yadav, the perennial Artful Dodger.

Of course, there may well be unintended consequences of Nitish’s decision to break ranks with the rest of the NDA on the presidential election. Read with Mulayam’s U-turn after a mysterious nocturnal meeting, Nitish’s action may have dented the idea of a Federal Front calling the shots after the 2014 poll. The regional players still remain relevant, but the prospects of a direct confrontation between the UPA and the NDA have increased. For an India looking for clarity, this may not be such a bad thing after all.

Friday, June 22, 2012

There is something reassuring about the controversy
centred on Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s views on the qualifications
necessary for an ideal Prime Minister of India. Although his interview to a
financial daily has set the cat among the pigeons, its impact may prove to be
salutary.

Instead of fudging the choices likely to be offered
to the electorate in 2014 (or, perhaps, earlier), the main opposition party and
the National Democratic Alliance are being encouraged to announce their
preferred choice well in advance. Since India doesn’t have a system of
primaries, the political churning likely to result from Nitish’s sharp
intervention may well prove the most democratic way of parties and alliances
arriving at an informed choice well before an election.

In the event of an outright NDA victory in the
general election, the country may at least be blessed with a Prime Minister
who, apart from enjoying a majority in the Lok Sabha, had also sought and
secured the endorsement of the people. If nothing, the pre-election churning
may well prevent a repetition of the Janata Party experiment between 1977 and
1979 when complications arose from a failure to blend a resounding mandate with
a clear choice of leader.

Of course, it is unlikely that the enrichment of the
democratic process was foremost in the mind of the Bihar Chief Minister when he
gave his diplomatically-worded but yet very candid interview earlier this week.
Nitish has never concealed his wariness of the man who, for all practical
purposes, is now regarded by the Bharatiya Janata Party as first among equals:
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. By suggesting that any future Prime
Minister must have impeccable secular credentials and feel for the poorer
states of India, as opposed to developing the already developed regions, Nitish
was questioning the wisdom of upgrading Modi from a powerful regional leader to
the highest rung of national politics. He also made it apparent that would have
nothing to do with any formation that went to the polls with Modi at the helm.
In effect, he issued an ultimatum to the BJP to either keep Modi confined to
Gujarat or face the consequences.

It is almost certain that Nitish timed his intervention
to take advantage of the churning within the BJP. Since the defeat of 2009, the
BJP has been struggling to maintain a semblance of coherence which has led to
its failure to take full advantage of the UPA’s wayward record of governance.
What is referred to in shorthand as the BJP’s unending crisis was occasioned by
its inability to throw up a leader capable of stepping into the shoes of the
Atal Behari Vajpayee-L.K. Advani duo. Within the community of saffron
activists, Modi was unquestionably the person with the greatest personal
popularity. However, his awkward relationship with the RSS prevented the party
from translating his appeal into responsibility. Following prolonged
back-channel negotiations, that issue was finally resolved at the Mumbai
National Executive in May when Modi was, for all practical purposes, anointed
as the successor to Advani. The formal coronation, however, was left pending
till the outcome of the Assembly election in Gujarat. If Modi repeats his
earlier victories, he will be thrust into the national stage, well in time for
the 2012 election.

Yet, despite his cult following among activists,
question marks over Modi’s ability to steer the BJP into power at the Centre
persist. The sceptics can be divided into three broad categories. First, there
is a group of RSS full-timers who are repelled by Modi’s fierce individualism
and his disregard for a collegiate style of functioning. They are furious with
Modi for totally bypassing the RSS in the conduct of governance. Secondly,
there are some veteran leaders and their protégés who are mindful that Modi’s
rise will involve their own eclipse. Finally, there are the pragmatists who are
doubtful of Modi’s ability to build an effective coalition. Their concerns
centre on the recognition that the BJP’s reach is limited by geography and that
there has been no worthwhile expansion of the party (except in Karnataka) since
2004. Will a Modi-led BJP, they ask, be left friendless in 2014, just as
Vajpayee was in 1996?

Nitish’s threat to walk out of the NDA in the event
of Modi being named the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate was primarily aimed
at the pragmatists in the BJP. With the party out of the reckoning in large
tracts of the country, the possible loss of a valued ally in Bihar would
further undermine its chances to be at the undisputed helm of a non-Congress
government in 2014. In effect, Nitish has posed an uncomfortable question to
the BJP: do you want to be in power or merely fly the flag?

This is a question that BJP pragmatists, including
many who have no real objections to Modi as long as he can steer the party to a
tally of 180 seats, cannot afford to ignore. The fact that RSS chief Mohan Rao
Bhagwat has come out in favour of the BJP’s right to choose its own prime ministerial
candidate is likely to ensure that discordant voices in the BJP remain silent
for the moment. Although Modi is no longer linked with political Hindutva, the
RSS chief has let it be known that the Gujarat Chief Minister is back in favour
with Nagpur. This implies that Modi has prevailed in the inner-party battle to
secure for himself a pre-eminent national role.

This is not to suggest that Nitish’s intervention
will fall completely on deaf ears and that there will be no option left for the
Janata Dal (United) but to walk out of the NDA in the coming year. On the
contrary, it is more than likely that the coming months will witness a serious
attempt by the BJP to address some of the key concerns raised by Nitish.

On the issue of secularism, there are already
indications that sadbhavna,
particularly the need to rise above sectarian differences in a common quest for
development, will be an important plank in Modi’s re-election bid in Gujarat.
To what extent this approach pacifies his detractors is unknown. What is
however clear is that the BJP does not propose to go into battle in 2014 flying
the banner of assertive majoritarianism.

Likewise, the Gujarat polls may see Modi fine-tune
his message of aggressive development to accommodate the concerns of those
unable to cope with the vagaries of the market economy. Modi is unlikely to
ever compromise on the efficiency quotient of government, but he will walk the
extra mile to commit himself to a compassionate administration that actually
delivers. Modi has consciously detached himself from the poverty glorification
rhetoric of the socialists and this has prompted his detractors to see him as
an Indian version of an American Tea Party activist. The Gujarat election may
see him tweaking this message. He may well be inclined to link poverty
alleviation with transparency and efficiency in government. Modi is one of the
most effective political communicators after Vajpayee. The imagery he is likely
to use in Gujarat will almost certainly also be aimed at a wider, pan-Indian
audience.

At the end of the day, successful leadership depends
on popular perceptions. Modi’s strength is charisma based on purposeful,
no-nonsense leadership. Today, this style appeals to the middle classes
exasperated by the government’s economic ineptitude. Repackaged with a dose of
personal integrity, it has the potential of capturing the attention of a larger
constituency.

Nitish knows that. This
is why he has sought to knock Modi out of the race before the bandwagon starts
rolling.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Mamata Banerjee may well be pilloried by many for defying the rules of ethnic solidarity and trying her utmost to prevent the election of the first Bengali President of India.

However, had she not stepped out of 10 Janpath last Thursday afternoon and announced Sonia Gandhi’s shortlist to the world and then joined Mulayam Singh Yadav to proclaim an alternative slate, it is entirely possible that Pranab Mukherjee would have remained exactly where he was: as the Number Two man in a tottering Government rather than India’s First citizen. Indeed, had it not been for both Mamata and Mulayam, the country may have been weighing the implications of either Meira Kumar or Hamid Ansari in Rashtrapati Bhavan.

To many people, over-exposed to the ways of Lutyens’ Delhi, politics is all about closed door parleys, intrigue and conspiracies. Occasionally, however, as many great events of the past testify, politics follows the laws of unintended consequences.

It is now apparently clear — despite the inexplicable reluctance of the media to pursue the point — that by blurting out the gist of her conversation with the UPA chairperson, Mamata did not show her wanton disregard of the Umerta (the code that guides some people in southern Europe) as Ambika Soni so imperiously suggested on TV. On the contrary, she had sought and secured Sonia’s sanction for blurting out the two names to the media.

Mamata’s claim has not been seriously contested by the Congress. Why, therefore, was Sonia willing to let Mamata make the shortlist public? The answer was self-evident. Mamata’s opposition to Pranab babu — a consequence of rivalries rooted in the politics of West Bengal — was well known. So was the fact that she viewed Vice President Ansari with suspicion, not least because she sees him as too closely associated with the Left. Mamata must have made her deep reservations of the two names known to Sonia. Equally, she must have blurted out her preference for former President APJ Abdul Kalam. Under these circumstances, why did Sonia not insist that the discussions in 10 Janpath remain confidential?

Was Sonia trying to be too clever by half? Was she setting the mercurial Mamata loose to indicate that there was fierce opposition to Mukherjee from within his home State? Would the confusion of Mamata and Mulayam demanding wider consultations have given her the necessary elbow room to smuggle in a third name and, in the process, negate Pranab? After all, many in the Congress president’s charmed circle had let it be known that the Finance Minister was not the lady’s first choice.

Unfortunately for the Congress, not everything can be pre-scripted. It would be fair to say that no one in the Congress ever expected the Mamata-Mulayam list to include Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the second preference — a gesture that was tantamount to ridicule. Neither did they ever contemplate that Mulayam would give his endorsement to Mamata’s insistence on Kalam. The 16-hour delay in the Congress responding to the Mamata-Mulayam bombshell was not calculated. It was the inevitable consequence of the Congress weighing the consequences of a sideshow that had gone horribly wrong. More to the point, the M&M show had exposed Sonia to the charge that she had botched up her responsibility to manage the presidential election — a charge that loyal Congressmen could never countenance.

What really triggered a panic in Congress circles was a growing fear that, encouraged by Mulayam’s support, Kalam would actually contest and transform the presidential contest into a battle for the UPA Government’s very existence. The Congress was aware that Kalam had kept the question of his candidature open-ended — an impression bolstered by publicity-seeking loudmouths associated with the NDA.

The Congress machinery works best when entrusted with the responsibility of managing politicians. Consequently, it undertook two separate campaigns. First, it put its entire weight behind an operation to detach Mulayam from Mamata. Presumably, this was done with a blend of threats (and the better informed know what they are) and inducements. Mulayam, who, unlike Mamata, is not always insistent on maximalist positions, duly obliged. His prompt endorsement of Pranab after the formal announcement of candidature effectively put an end to Kalam’s candidature.

Secondly, faced with the possibility of a real challenge and the likelihood of an erosion of faith in her own capabilities, Sonia had to fall back on a candidate who was guaranteed to win the maximum support across the board. Meira Kumar was a possibility but this meant alienating a man who had set his heart on Rashtrapati Bhavan. This, in turn, had the potential of triggering a new set of problems which the beleaguered Congress could not afford.

It is interesting to note that whereas the enlarged CWC had delegated the selection of the presidential candidate to Sonia, the aftermath of the M&M drama led to the re-involvement of the Congress Core Committee in the proceedings. Faced with a possibility of a minor muscle flexing by two parties escalating into a larger crisis, the Congress president was compelled to revert to a collegiate style of politics.

The outcome was advantageous for Pranab Mukherjee who will soon be President. It was beneficial to Manmohan Singh who secured his party’s resounding vote of confidence. For Sonia Gandhi, however, the happy ending was dissimilar to the one envisaged in the original script.

And, by way of a footnote, there remained one unanswered question: where was Rahul Gandhi when it all happened?

Some 10 days ago, when the stock market was
witnessing a momentary upturn on the news of the Prime Minister’s new
purposefulness in decision-making, a senior executive of a reputable
stockbroking firm telephoned me. What, he asked was the likelihood of the
Samajwadi Party replacing the Trinamool Congress in the Government and
facilitating the much-delayed FDI in retail?

That I responded to the suggestion with scepticism
is incidental. What was revealing was the query itself. It seemed astonishing
that stakeholders in the capital markets were basing strategic decisions on the
strength of whispers.

On further reflection it didn’t seem all that
astonishing. With the Indian economy in the doldrums and respected figures in
the corporate world despairing of the country’s future, there is an
understandable temptation of those with a stake in India to clutch at straws. Too
many people have invested too much in India to readily allow a sweet dream to
turn into a horrible nightmare. Hence the unending quest for light at the end
of a long, dark tunnel.

Tragically, the attempts to talk up the India story
have been constantly derailed by the intrusion of reality. The Uttar Pradesh
Assembly results, where drawing room wisdom once deemed that the Congress would
secure around 100 seats, put an end to hopes of a rejuvenated Congress with the
heir apparent at the helm; the UPA’s hiccups over the presidential election
have exposed the Government’s vulnerability and nullified its capacity for
decisive action; and, read with the string of defeats in Assembly and municipal
polls, the Congress’ decimation in the Andhra Pradesh by-elections has served
as a curtain-raiser for the next general election.

India faces the grim prospect of a comatose
government, determined to live for another two years in ICU.

Since politics abhors vacuum, it is likely that the
coming months will be see the focus slowly shift from the Congress and UPA to
the Opposition. The editorial classes which often determine the contours of
chattering class wisdom have deemed that the state of the Opposition is as
parlous as that of the Government and that it is a choice between two competing
versions of ineptitude. Is that going to be the last word?

Following Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s
anointment last month as the BJP’s favourite son—the proverbial first among
equals—much air time and newsprint have been expended in detailing why the
choice is flawed. All the perceived shortcomings of Modi have been lavishly detailed:
his imperious personality, the controversies over his handling of the 2002
riots, the fear and loathing he invokes among Muslims, the wariness of a
section of the RSS and BJP over his leadership style, and the likelihood of his
projection leading to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar deserting the NDA. Few
Indian politicians have been the target of much vitriolic abuse, and still
survived.

If Modi indeed brings with him a wagon load of
political liabilities, including European and American disdain, why do opinion
polls indicate a steady rise in his popularity graph all over India? Why does
the social media, which is otherwise fully exposed to the scepticism of the
mainstream media, so lavish in his adulation of the man it calls NAMO? Why does
he have seven lakh Twitter followers?

It is far too early to proffer categorical answers.
However, amid the chatter of discordant voices, some early trends can be
detected. There is indeed an emerging Modi phenomenon triggered partly by an
acute sense of frustration with the incumbent Government. However, the elevation
of Modi into a political icon of a section of the young, educated middle
classes owes enormously to a larger impatience with a culture of underperformance.
The mismatch between soaring expectations and politics-induced mediocrity is
fuelling the demand for purposeful, no-nonsense leadership. As of now, this
yearning for a radical break with existing styles of politics is confined to a
section of Young India, but it has the potential of gathering momentum and
experiencing modifications along the road. The rise of Modi is a commentary on
the evolving mind of India and the breakdown of many assumptions governing
politics.

Those looking for
good news should keep their antenna pointed in the direction of Gujarat.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Among the more curious features of public life in this country is the disinclination of subordinates to pass on bad news to the boss. This stems from our natural inclination for flattery and a tendency to equate the messenger with the message.

In the 1960s, the generals gave the Prime Minister a misleading picture of our defence preparedness along India’s eastern borders; in 1977, intelligence agencies gave Indira Gandhi a very rosy picture of the public response to the Emergency; and earlier this year, self-serving Congress apparatchiks and participatory psephologists told Rahul Gandhi that he was taking Uttar Pradesh by storm. This week, after repeating ad nauseam that India would have a normal monsoon, the meteorological department (whose job is to provide accurate forecasts and not manage the economy) has grudgingly admitted that the rains are proving a bit disappointing but that it will be all right in the end.

A Churchillian determination to talk up national morale in times of war is understandable, and even commendable. However, its indiscriminate use, as recent events in India show, can be woefully counter-productive. Throughout this year, the government has been in denial over the state of the economy, pretending like in the film 3 Idiots that “all is well” and that only the envious are making awkward noises.

In January this year, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who, apart from being the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, also doubles up as the government’s chief pundit on economics, was telling gullible Indians that “the current downturn in economic growth due to developments in euro zone, had bottomed out”, that the “economy was on its way back to the high growth trajectory as the inflation was subsiding and the rupee stabilising against the dollar.”

Nearly five months later, on June 11, reacting to a Standard & Poor’s report suggesting that India could soon become a “fallen angel” unless the government woke up to its obligations, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said that the ratings agency had got it all wrong. India, he asserted on a day when statistics recorded the country’s industrial production to be stagnant, was actually poised for a dramatic “turnaround” in 2012-13. All that India needed to get back to the nine per cent growth on which the Planning Commission is apparently basing its 12th Five-Year Plan calculations, was to hold its breath, undertake a modest austerity regime and pray that Greece doesn’t go bankrupt. To drive home the new purposefulness, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh even held a proverbial “high-powered” meeting of ministers last week and, like a hard taskmaster, set targets that must be achieved.

The fact that in just two years India has made a transition from being the flavour of the season to a point where investments in the country are on the verge of being viewed as “speculative” is nothing short of remarkable. The question naturally arises: did the government not read the writing on the wall? If there is now a sudden flurry of activity to remove infrastructural bottlenecks, why was this not done earlier?

The answers, as the S&P report rightly notes, are almost entirely political. Ever since it was re-elected in 2009, the UPA-2 has proceeded on the specious assumption that the India story is divinely ordained, and that it fell on the government to merely manage the spoils of growth. It was this smugness that was responsible for the 2G fiasco, the scandals over the Commonwealth Games and the preoccupation with creating a network of entitlements aimed at ensuring repeated re-election. The implications of individual ministers doing their own thing and the regression into a complex regime of labyrinthine controls were overlooked. The government went into a denial mode, blotting out the bad news.

It would be no exaggeration to suggest that until the precipitate slide in the value of the rupee earlier this summer and the grim data of industrial stagnation, the political class as a whole was blissfully unaware of the magnitude of the economic crisis. It was assumed that the real problem was inflation. Once that beast had been tamed — as the government was insistent it would — things would be hunky-dory once again. It is interesting that the issues which agitated the Congress until a few months ago was the career of Mr Gandhi, the proposed legislation on land acquisition, the sub-quota for minorities and the proposed Food Security Bill which would upstage the MNREGA as the new magic wand of electoral success. The report card released by the UPA-2 on its third anniversary dinner last month still spoke in terms of India being one of the world’s fastest growing economies. The issues raised by the S&P report were neither mentioned nor addressed. The regime had become a prisoner of its own make-believe world.

The move from denial to disaster management is always difficult to manage. In times of adversity, the Congress has responded in two familiar ways: by either retreating into despondency (as P.V. Narasimha Rao did in the run-up to the 1996 election) or falling back on shrillness (as Indira Gandhi did in 1975 and Rajiv Gandhi attempted to do in 1988-89). Dr Singh is temperamentally more inclined to following the course set by Rao but he doesn’t control a party that is itching to rediscover the “destabilisation” rhetoric. Consequently, India must brace itself for at least two years of cacophonic drift.

Monday, June 11, 2012

One of the features of my student days in Delhi during the big, bad years of the shortage economy in the early-1970s was the sheer modesty of expectations.

For the more sartorially conscious students, the ultimate of high fashion lay in possessing a pair of Levis jeans. Indeed, faded American-made denim trousers was such a craze that shopkeepers around Mohan Singh Place, off Connaught Circus, made a handsome profit buying jeans from foreign backpackers and re-selling these to deprived Indians at a premium.

India has come a long way since that era of socialist deprivation. So much so that Delhi’s Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit told Economic Times last week that it was inconceivable “that I can afford a can of cheese imported from Ireland or New Zealand but I cannot afford to pay 10 per cent of the price of what I buy as tax to the Government.” However, in a curious sort of way, sustained bad news on the economic front has once again triggered a dramatic lowering of expectations.

This is particularly true of India’s investing classes that have been battered senseless by an unending stream of bad news-high inflation, industrial slowdown, ratings downgrades, the falling rupee, mounting fiscal deficits and, above all, a policy paralysis that has blocked off light at the end of a long tunnel. Like those misguided souls who found solace in second-hand jeans, they too are clutching desperately at straws, ferreting desperately for good news.

Some good news seemed in the offing last week after it was revealed that the Prime Minister had convened a proverbial high-powered meeting of Ministers and like a stern taskmaster set them targets that would help rejuvenate the economy. There was a flurry of excitement all round as news channels went into overdrive-which, to be fair, doesn’t call for much doing. A receptive stock market reversed its bearishness, registered gains and a Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank even suggested that interest rate cuts were possible.

There is no “magic wand”, the Prime Minister had proclaimed from the ramparts of Red Fort on Independence Day last year. Now, suddenly, someone must have discovered a magic baton. Speaking in Mumbai last Friday, the hapless Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission who had earlier in the week been forced to explain toilet arrangements at Yojana Bhavan, rediscovered his bullish instincts. According to a report in Hindu Business Line, Montek Singh Ahluwalia said that “India will see a turnaround in its economic fortunes in the July-September period…The economy is expected to grow at about 6.5 to 7 per cent in the current financial year.”

Less than a month ago, on May 20, he had told PTI in New York that “Falling rupee and high inflation would make it difficult for India to achieve 7.5 per cent economic growth during the current financial year.” He said that the Finance Ministry’s target of 7.5 per cent growth this year was “going to be tough but not impossible”. Three weeks before that, on April 28, in London — he certainly does get around — he had said that “he expected India’s growth rate this year to hover around 7 to 7.5 per cent”.

More to the point, it is even more instructive reading what Montek was saying on January 10 this year to a convention of automobile dealers in Delhi: “Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia who was the chief guest at the Valedictory Session, expressed the view that the current downturn in economic growth due to developments in Euro zone, had bottomed out. Allaying the fears, he said that the economy was on its way back to the high growth trajectory as the inflation was subsiding and the rupee stabilising against the dollar. The economic growth would climb back to 9% in the next couple of years.”

January, incidentally, was the time the stock market had witnessed a ‘news-based rally’ caused, among other things, by a belief that the Congress would do rather well in the Uttar Pradesh elections and that the Prime Minister’s Office would get more purposeful following the induction of Pulok Chatterjee as the Principal Secretary. At that time too there had been a series of meetings to remove the bottlenecks confronting power producers.

Reading these reports in reverse chronological order, certain conclusions are warranted. First, that there have been attempts by the Government, helped by a gullible media, to talk up the economy at critical junctures. Yet, these contrived initiatives have invariably faltered following the realisation that the Government just doesn’t have the capacity to deliver on its promises. Secondly, like the time Montek told car dealers in January that the Eurozone crisis has bottomed out, the Government has expediently used the international situation to wish away what is essentially a Made-in-India economic decline. Thirdly, that there is absolutely no sanctity that needs to be attached to the Government’s growth projections. If the regime’s foremost economic thinker can vacillate so markedly in his utterances over six months, it suggests that either the Government itself is clueless and crippled or that it is being wilfully disingenuous.

Therefore, when Montek is pilloried these days for spending too much on his frequent foreign visits and mocked for spending `35 lakhs on the renovation of two toilets in Yojana Bhavan, there is an underlying story that is also unfolding. The country has lost faith in the intellectual integrity of its glib economists.

Like many kids of my generation who were encouraged
at home and school to cultivate hobbies, I began collecting stamps at the age
of seven. Unfortunately, like many childhood preoccupations, this interest
didn’t endure. By the time I reached my teens, the stamp album was relegated to
a bottom drawer and forgotten in favour of more exciting diversions. That is, until
one lazy afternoon in the summer of 1995 when, strolling aimlessly down the
Strand in London I stopped in front of the Stanley Gibbons shop and
rediscovered my childhood passion. These days, no visit to London is complete
without the mandatory visit to the Saturday Collector’s Fair in an obscure
basement adjoining Charing Cross station and a nondescript shop off Trafalgar
Square where an ex-policeman from Kenya with a fierce walrus moustache, a
collector of Bhutanese stamps, holds court

As a child, I collected every stamp I could lay my
hands on. These days, I try to specialise—but without losing sight of my
amateur status. At the centre of my philatelic hoarding are two themes. First,
there is the constant endeavour to fill the blank spaces of the four-volume
Stanley Gibbons album of British and Commonwealth stamps issued in the 16-year
reign of George VI—a time when the British Empire reached its apogee (and began
its slow march to dissolution). Second, there is the far less demanding project
of accumulating British First Day Covers—what I call my Elizabethan project.

Unlike the George VI collection which, alas, is
destined to remain incomplete even if I decide to sink my life’s earnings into
it, the Elizabethan venture isn’t marked by a quest for high-priced rarities—at
least not yet. What is striking about the stamps embossed with the Queen’s head
is their sheer range, spanning six decades. No other monarch in philatelic
history can come close to rivalling the chronological expanse of Elizabethan
Britain—in three years, it will have overtaken the Victorian age. My FDC collection
began modestly with just one volume but, over the years, has grown to cover
seven volumes. By the beginning of next year, I would have begun on the eighth.
And, if the life of the Queen Mother is any guide, there is at least a decade
of Elizabethan stamps yet to come. Or so I hope.

The institution of monarchy, rich with all its trappings
and embellishments, may well appear an anachronism in a world where
republicanism has taken hold. That it still survives and, indeed, is an object
of frenzied adulation, may well be taken as confirmation of everything that is
wrong with today’s Britain—a class-ridden country too firmly attached to its
inheritance. Yet, apart from the wonderful pageantry that was on display
earlier this week at the Diamond Jubilee celebrations in London and elsewhere,
the attachment to the old Queen did serve to underline the monarchy’s role as
the great unifier.

In the past 60 years, the British Isles have changed
profoundly. The war-ravaged, austerity Britain that witnessed the Coronation of
the young Queen still counted itself as a world power. The Indian subcontinent,
Ceylon and Burma may have eased themselves from the bonds of imperial rule but
in 1953, as my stamp collection testifies, the Union Jack still flew over parts
of the world carrying exotic names such as Basutoland, Bechuanaland, Northern
and Southern Rhodesia and Tanganyika. White settlers from Britain still tuned
in to crackling short wave BBC broadcasts in their expansive farms in the
outskirts of Nairobi, Bulawayo and Natal, and holders of Commonwealth passports
had the automatic right to live in the ‘mother country’. In 1953, Britain was
primarily an ethnically composite country. It was also a country, as the evocative,
new BBC drama Call the Midwife
reminded the new Elizabethans, also a country where a fierce sense of community
prevailed.

All that has changed forever. In the past 60 years,
Britain has experienced one of the most dramatic demographic shift known to
settled societies. The Commonwealth exists in the far-flung places whose flags
were on display at the Thames flotilla, but in reality it also exists in
London’s doorstep. The Empire is history but its physical presence is all
pervasive. The Union Flag still flutters defiantly over Port Stanley in the
Falkland Islands, over Gibraltar and on Stormont Castle. But, as is common
knowledge, Whitehall wouldn’t bat an eyelid if it was compelled to replicate
the dignified departure from Hong Kong, a decade or so ago.

Thanks to the City of London, Britain still remains
at the centre of the global financial world attracting smart young fund
managers, bankers and experts in abstruse financial instruments. However, as
the serpentine queues before immigration counters in Heathrow and the fears of a
breakdown triggered by the Olympics overload testify, its infrastructure is
woefully inadequate. And, as last year’s vicious riots in London served to
underline, the sense of community has given way to profound alienation and an
overall disrespect for the British way of life. Binge drinking and loutish
behaviour have elbowed out restraint. “Keep calm and carry on” is now strictly
for coffee mugs and tea towels.

Even the idea of the United Kingdom has come under
strain. Why, even a large section of Scotland now imagines an independent,
idyllic future where the Union flag will no longer fly over Edinburgh Castle. In
all probability, the Scottish Nationalists won’t win the proposed referendum
but the mere fact that it will be held at all is ominous.

Britain often conveys the image of an unchanging
society, as unchanging as the bus routes in London and the MCC member’s stand
at Lord’s. Had he been alive, Harold Macmillan, the last custodian of the ancien regime, may even have appreciated
the plethora of non-titled Etonians on the front bench of the Conservative
Party. But these facets of continuity are superficial. In reality, Britain has
transformed itself dramatically—much more than is apparent from the Letters
columns of the Daily Telegraph where eccentricity and quirkiness continue to be
celebrated.

Only one thing remains charmingly unchanged: the
head of the sovereign on the postage stamps. It would not be wrong to say that
with her quiet dignity and her frumpish ways, the Queen has emerged as the
symbol of reassurance. Prince Charles may have overstated the point last Monday
when, in the aftermath of the concert outside Buckingham Palace, he lauded the
Queen for “making us proud to be British”, but he came closest to underlining
the enormous sense of popular identification. Unlike Queen Victoria, the other
Queen whose reign crossed six decades, Elizabeth Windsor will not have put her
distinctive stamp on the national character. It is equally hard to
conceptualise something that may come to be known as Elizabethan attitudes. The
Queen has undoubtedly lived up to all expectations as a personification of
dignity and duty, but her family life has been troubled. The Royal family as a
whole never stood up to exacting scrutiny in the past, and this tradition has
been upheld.

Yet, all these
hiccups has not deterred the British public from perceiving their Queen as
someone special, someone who can be trusted to do the right thing and someone
who has unfailingly maintained the dignity of her office. She has been
Britain’s ever faithful security blanket. In hindsight, the euphoria of 2012
will come to be recognised for what it actually was: a show of love for an exemplary
individual rather than an unequivocal endorsement of an institution.

Sunday, June 03, 2012

There were two stereotypes of Kolkata that jostled
for primacy amid the huffing and puffing over the midsummer euphoria
surrounding the victory of the Shah Rukh Khan-owned Kolkata Knight Riders in
this year’s IPL.

The first were the voices of dismay from
intellectuals and Leftists disgusted by the show of frivolity at Eden Gardens
last Tuesday. What compounded the offence in their eyes was the enthusiastic
participation of a Chief Minister in a party dominated by Bollywood and
Tollywood stars. For those appreciative of a Jyoti Basu who rationed laughter
and a Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee who found inspiration in revolutionary verse and
subtitled films, a leader at one with popular culture was more than a
departure: it was heresy. By facilitating a carnival on a humid May afternoon,
Mamata Banerjee struck a devastating blow at the over-refined self-image of
Bengalis. As one angry Communist MP spluttered on TV that evening, the
celebrations had nothing to do with either cricket or Bengal.

Yet, the seemingly irrational over-exuberance also
corresponded to a parallel stereotype: that of the excitable Bengali. In the
rush to deify the effete Bong, the outsider’s perception of those who inspired
Rudyard Kipling’s ‘banderlog’ (in Jungle
Book) is often glossed over.

The cruel truth is that Bengalis have preferred collective
assertion to individualism. The first Test match in India to experience a
full-blown riot happened in Eden Gardens on New Year’s Day in 1967, and was
marked—or so legend has it—by West Indian players making a mad dash from a
tear-gas filled stadium to the Grand Hotel. In his day, Jawaharalal Nehru
called it a “city of processions” and by the time his grandson ruled the roost,
it was dying from enforced holidays, when traffic stopped and street cricket
took over.

It is tempting to relate last week’s spectacle of a
lakh of people gyrating to the rhythm of rock groups Bhoomi and Chandrabindu
and celebrating KKR’s success to the Bengali penchant for hujuk—an evocative term that signifies infectious craziness. In the
past, Kolkata has gone berserk over Pele, Nelson Mandela and—for those with
longer memories—Nikita Krushchev and Fidel Castro. Was the spontaneous frenzy
over Shah Rukh and his team in keeping with a tradition of excitability?

The answer is self-evident. From the five days of
worship and gluttony during Durga Puja to Shah Rukh’s number with Juhi Chawla, Kolkata
has loved street parties and carnivals. Why, even the annual Book Fair sees
more food consumed than books sold. There is an inverse correlation between
economic activity and collective frenzy, and Kolkata is living proof of that. Why
then the feigned outrage over Mamata’s party for Shah Rukh?

The answer, it would seem, can be located in
Kolkata’s institutionalised schizophrenia. Like Ireland, middle-class Kolkata
is blessed with a diaspora larger than the resident population. The exiles, who
look back wistfully at the city they grudgingly abandoned, have nurtured an image
of a Kolkata that corresponds to their own self-image: gentle, cultured,
idealistic, romantic and blessed with an innate sense of decency. It is not
that such a Kolkata has ceased to exist, but that this constitutes a fragment
of the many enclaves that make up the city.

In a wonderful novel Calcutta Exile set in the 1950s, Bunny Suraiya narrated the
touching story of the intersection between the Anglo-Indian community of Ripon
Street and the upper-class Bengali of Ballygunge. It was set in a city that was
marked for its creativity, commerce and the good life. That Kolkata disappeared
with the advent of the Reds. In its place are multiple ghettos of despondency,
each bound by the feeling of having been left behind. For today’s Ryan family,
the grand-daughters are in Melbourne and the Mookerjee heir is comfortably
placed in a Manhattan job. An unchanging Kolkata is just a memory they want to
cling on to.

No city in India has
been the object of so much pitiable condescension as Kolkata, a city that has
forgotten the taste of success. In the KKR victory the city finally had
something to celebrate. For India’s other metros, preoccupied with life and
business, T-20 victory would have been just one of those things.

Saturday, June 02, 2012

In politics, timing is everything. In more normal
times, L.K. Advani’s blog, written partially in response to my column last
week, could have been viewed as an intervention on inner-party democracy or,
more specifically, the BJP’s ability to respond to adversity. Unfortunately,
the blog was uploaded on May 31, in the immediate aftermath of the BJP National
Executive in Mumbai and on the day that the NDA (of which he is the Chairman)
organised a reasonably successful Bharat bandh to protest against the steep hike
in petrol prices. In other words, while the party’s foot soldiers were out in
the streets on an unbearably hot day, Advani diverted attention to navel
gazing.

Admittedly, playing spoil-sport, even if it was only
to contest my assessment of the Mumbai National Executive meeting, may not have
been uppermost in the mind of the BJP patriarch. But his unequivocal assertion
that there was widespread popular disappointment with the party and internal
disenchantment with some of its recent moves ended up suggesting one of two
things: either that the party was deeply divided or that Advani himself was out
of tune with the organisation he has so lovingly built over the past three
decades.

In a mass party of the size and diversity of the
BJP, it is near-impossible to believe that every functionary will be on the
same page. Even in the heady days of the Ayodhya movement, it was hardly a
secret that Atal Behari Vajpayee harboured misgivings of the BJP’s
hyper-involvement in the agitation. Yet, it was also true that Vajpayee’s
scepticism was not shared by the overwhelming majority of the party, and this
was a reason why Advani, strongly backed by the RSS, was preferred over
Vajpayee for the Leader of Opposition post in 1991. Of course, Vajpayee’s
dissent happened in the pre-Breaking News age.

In today’s BJP, there are many shades of opinion
jostling for attention. Consensus-building is tortuous and often involves
leaving issues unresolved for longer than is strictly necessary—as happened in
the case of Uttarakhand and as is happening in Karnataka. More often than not
it also produces patch-work compromises that fail the test of wider political
acceptability.

For the BJP, the exercise in collective
decision-making has not always yielded satisfactory results for two reasons.
Since the Jinnah controversy and the retirement of Vajpayee from active
politics, the BJP no longer has a pre-eminent leader who can take a final call,
even if it involves offending colleagues. Advani was unquestionably the tallest
leader and a person who enjoyed wide respect of all. However, following the
BJP’s failure to make the grade in the presidential-style campaign of the 2009
general election, his ability to get his way on different issues is carrying
diminishing returns.

One of the reasons for this is a mismatch of
perception over the veteran leader’s role. Whereas most of the party views
Advani as a mentor occupying the largely ceremonial role of Chairman of the
NDA, Advani sees himself as an active player in the day-to-day affairs of the
party and a person who still calls the shots. It is not that his views are
disregarded or that he is kept out of the party’s important decision-making
bodies, but that his word is no longer final. It is a human problem. The world
around Advani has changed but he has not moved with the times.

The consequences have been tragic. Advani may
imagine that he is expressing his heartfelt anguish and echoing the sentiments
of those exasperated by the delay in creating a viable alternative to a
discredited UPA. However, to the party faithful he is increasingly appearing in
the garb of a faction leader and a pliant instrument of those who have scores
to settle with colleagues. Advani may reflect on the fact that while his blog
has aroused fierce media interest, it has generated very little sympathy from
within the BJP.

In Mumbai, the BJP moved one step closer to finding
a new equilibrium. First, it took the first tentative steps in anointing a
leader who can step into the shoes of Vajpayee and Advani. On his part, former
Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa has identified the man explicitly and
this was echoed in the public meeting at Mumbai. Secondly, in keeping with the
enhanced importance of states in the polity, the BJP chose to formally
recognise the importance of regional leaders in national affairs. There were
many things the National Executive left unaddressed. The most important of
these is the policy orientation of the party which is increasingly looking very
ad-hoc. But at least a beginning was made in recasting the party to suit
contemporary realities.

The BJP is in the
throes of a delicate transition to a new order. Like any new enterprise, there
are grave risks and many uncertainties. There are also dangers that the removal
of one set of problems could lead to the creation of new distortions, the most
import of which is ideological insularity. With his long experience, Advani has
a key role to play in the run-up to the next general election. Every
organisation can do with a father figure who can iron out the creases, provide
encouragement and caution, and inspire with his record of selflessness. Like
his favourite A.K. Hangal contemplating a comeback, Advani can enrich a good
story. He must leave the business of drawing in the crowds to someone else.

Friday, June 01, 2012

‘Curmudgeonly’ is a tongue-twister that, ideally, I
would rather not use. However, I can think of no better and appropriate
expression to describe the reactions of a Communist MP from West Bengal to the
boisterous celebrations in Kolkata last Tuesday when the Kolkata Knight Riders
and Shah Rukh Khan came ‘home’ with the IPL trophy.

At the best of times Gurudas Das Gupta sports a
scowl and a sneer, and wears his Communist superiority on his sleeve. If Jyoti
Basu had a reputation for never smiling, Das Gupta has made a career from being
permanently disgusted. When most people say that “it’s not cricket”, they take
refuge behind transparent superciliousness. When the CPI Lok Sabha MP said “not
cricket” last Tuesday, his expression was sneering. The IPL, he pronounced
angrily, was “not even sport”, and KKR “not even Bengal”. The whole thing was,
in his expert opinion, a corporate tamasha (or words to that effect).

Whether it is the Olympics, the Queen’s Jubilee,
Kaun Banega Crorepati and the IPL, every manifestation of popular culture
invites elitist and intellectual disdain. The Puritans, the biggest kill-joys
produced by Western civilisation, for example, loathed bear-baiting—once a
popular pastime of the drinking classes. But, as Macaulay was moved to observe,
the disavowal didn’t stem from compassion towards the unfortunate animal; it
was born from a disapproval of the joy the sport gave to the spectators.

Every society produces its own Roundheads. The only
difference is that whereas aloofness from the hoi-polloi was earlier a private
expression of taste, the made-in-media age has amplified contrariness into a
public talking point. Indeed, judging by the shrillness of the so-called
cricket purists who have made their mark on TV, it would seem that the IPL tournament
is nothing but a tasteless and even criminal enterprise.

The aesthetics of the IPL festival is, of course, a
matter of subjective preference. Undoubtedly there are individuals who prefer
watching live cricket amid the grandeur of empty stands and a few rounds of
polite clapping. To them, the pom-pom girls dancing boisterously each time the
ball crosses the boundary is an eyesore. Maybe it is a needless distraction
from the art of batting. Yet, at the risk of giving offence to the purists, it is
necessary to point out that first the one-day game (which was similarly berated
at its inception) and now the T-20 format have done more to enhance the
popularity of cricket in India than the combined efforts of W.G. Grace and
Ranjitsinhji.

This is not to undermine the worthy cricketers of
yore who contributed immeasurably to the development of cricket in this
country. It is only to stress that contemporary cricket can be neatly divided
into three categories: five-day Test cricket, the 50-over game and T-20. Each
form of the game has its own dynamics and requires different skills. Those who
persist with the impression that T-20 is nothing but a few cross bat slogs and
a few well-aimed yorkers ignore the spectacular improvisations that the
shortened format has brought to the game, not least of which is the dramatic
improvement in fielding. Whether it is M.S. Dhoni’s incredible helicopter
shot—which matches Ranji’s leg glance in improvisation—or the stunning catches
taken in the outfield, T-20 cricket has made the game far more energetic than
ever before.

Beyond the technicalities, there is another feature
of evolving cricket that is worthy of note: the shorter the game, the more its
popularity. This has everything to do with the pace of life in the 21st
century plus the fact that the T-20 games are timed to suit our leisure hours.

Yet, despite the growing international acceptance of
the T-20 format, what can be said with certainty is that this form of cricket
has flowered in India more than anywhere else in the Commonwealth. The IPL is
unquestionably the most successful cricket tournament in history, generating
interest levels and revenues that would have seemed inconceivable just three
decades ago when it was being said that cricket is a dying game. For good or
for worse, IPL is India’s most enduring contribution to sports. Nothing before
it—not even the string of Gold medals won in hockey from 1924 to 1980—has
surpassed its success.

In viewing IPL, we are not merely viewing the
evolution of cricket; we are dealing with a great Indian success story. It is
the enormous enthusiasm of cricket lovers in India—the breakthrough came with
the World Cup triumph in 1984—that is responsible for the shift in the centre
of gravity of the game moving from Lord’s to India. Much to the chagrin of
England and Australia, the cricket economy of the world is now centred on
India. And what is more, this shift has led to global spin-offs.

There was a time when cricketers all over the world
hankered for a season’s contract with an English county side. Today, throughout
the world, there is hunger for the talented to find a place in an IPL team and
spend two rewarding months in India. It does not really matter that KKR had
only three or four players who could have played Ranji Trophy for Bengal. The
KKR is a private club which, like football teams in Europe, has now become
identified with a city.

In today’s India, IPL
is possibly the only piece good news. Let us celebrate that.

About Me

The Right is an endangered community in India's English-language media. I happen to be one of the few to have retained a precarious toehold in the mainstream media. I intend this blog as a sounding board of ideas and concerns.
You can read the details of my education, professional experience and political inclinations on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swapan_Dasgupta).
RIGHT ANGLE is an archive of my published articles. USUAL SUSPECTS is my blog.